New Wave

The period from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s was a turbulent one in
many parts of the world. While African and Asian countries struggled for
and gained independence from colonial powers, the United States expanded
its own "imperial" interests in Southeast Asia and Latin
America, with important effects on the colonial powers themselves. In
Europe—East and West—there was widespread political and
cultural upheaval, culminating in the violent events of 1968. Cinema was
no exception to the general sense of change in the cultural realm and was
an important contributor to it. The period saw a number of "new
waves" in cinema in different countries, but the best
known—and the one that gave its name to the others, sometimes also
referred to as "new cinema" or "young
cinema"—was the French
nouvelle vague
, generally considered to have surfaced in 1958–1959 and to have
had decisive effects on French cinema, as well as other national cinemas,
at least until the mid-1960s, although its influence and reputation lasted
much longer and continues today.